Hurricane Katrina passes through Miami

I stayed in Miami during the storm last night, which lasted several hours and knocked out the power. Our electricity just came back on - listening to the news this morning, I realize Katrina did a lot of damage elsewhere in the city. Here, things seem okay so far. People in my building used it as an excuse to have a hurricane party - I took some pictures which are unfortunately quite dark (see below).

I'm planning to travel to Tacoma today, if my flight is not cancelled. Katrina is now in the Gulf of Mexico, sulking around and reconstituting herself for an attack on the Gulf coast. Thanks for checking on me!


Dan flashes gang signs while struggling to keep a bag over his head


John looks at me like I'm the crazy person 


Kristy enjoys the beach, and Dave's plastic covering 


the next day's wreckage on 21st Street 

family, revelations, and burdens

I think I've always been pretty open-minded and tolerant of other people's religious practices. I was even briefly part of a weird cult-like organization once myself, so I'm usually hip to any ritual I happen to stumble into, even if I have to mumble along to the words. Which made my reaction at a shabbat dinner at my sister's house earlier this summer seem exceptionally strange - I felt completely alienated and distanced from what they were doing. I couldn't have been much more rude if I had stuck a post-it note saying "not a Jew" on my forehead.

My sister Zoe and my brother-in-law Elliot aren't really hard-core Jews either - it's more a matter of ethnic heritage and family ties, which are becoming more important for them as they raise my nephew Isaac. Their shabbat ritual consists of some tasty sweet bread, which Elliot makes fresh each week, and they light some candles, chant some Hebrew, and pass around this challah bread and some wine for everyone in the house to share, including the baby and their two dogs. After I told them how uncomfortable I felt they were able to set me at ease and explain it all and make me realize that it's all very sweet, a celebration of the life and family they have together.

That prompted a fascinating conversation about our family - my brother Dan was also there visiting, and we realized how the three of us had taken away very different attitudes towards Judaism. Our mother is Jewish by birth, while our father is sort of non-denominational whateverish - still, it was he rather than Mom who got us started going to a Jewish temple school every Saturday morning when my brother and I were 4, my sister 6 or 7. Unfortunately, this was around the same time their marriage was splintering. One of my clearest memories of that time was waiting for what seemed like hours one Saturday outside the temple - Dad had moved out of the house, and apparently had forgotten to pick us up that day.

Divorce meant confusion, fighting, and disorder for me, and my brother and I both seemed to take out a lot of our hostility in that temple class. We were being taught there about all these miserable victimized people, wandering through deserts and drinking their own tears - the last people we wanted to identify with as angry 4-year-old boys. So we drew lots of dirty pictures and made nuisances of ourselves until we got kicked out of the class.

Interestingly, my sister told us about her very different experience of that time. For her, at 7, Judaism wasn't about wimpy passivity, but a lost ideal of familial togetherness and bliss. After we had settled into our very secular life with Mom, she said, she still longed for that sense of tradition and ritual that she remembered from the Jewish temple. When she married Elliot, who grew up in a reform Jewish family, it was she who wanted a traditional Jewish wedding, and who was most determined to raise Isaac according to Jewish customs.

a souvenir yarmulke from my sister's wedding

For my part, I've always been pretty skeptical about organized religion. I realize that according to tradition I am Jewish, since my mother's side of the family has always been, but I figure that if I didn't recognize those traditions I needn't identify myself as Jewish - sort of a catch-22. I had one experience in high school that made me wonder about that assumption, though.

It was my sophomore English class, and Ms. Clark was asking us for examples of evil to write on the eraser board. This was 1994, and it's hard to remember what we came up with - no one there had ever heard of al Qaeda, I'm sure. One thing that certainly was on the list, though, was the Holocaust. That is, it was until an evangelical Christian girl raised her hand and explained that since the Jews had been responsible for Christ's death, the Holocaust wasn't really evil. Amazingly, Ms. Clark actually erased "Holocaust" off the board and went on with her lesson.

I was probably the closest thing to a Jewish kid in that class, and I was almost certainly the only person who was going to speak up - still, it was kind of daunting to take on that role. It turned out that the Christian girl also felt terrible about it, she hadn't meant that at all, and Ms. Clark was happy to use it as a teaching point on cultural sensitivity. It also helped me write a really effective college admissions essay, so that was good.

So, returning to the dinner conversation at my sister's shabbat - we were all talking about our attitudes towards being Jewish, and Elliot had some ideas about that as well. He explained how he felt this awesome sense of responsibility to preserve the Jewish faith, knowing the price so many had paid for it. I wondered how, not knowing a word of Hebrew, I could ever take that responsibility, and why I would ever want to. Still, he said, he hoped I one day would, and that I would realize the joy of being part of something so much greater than any individual.

I kind of took exception to that, since in one way or another I think my whole life is devoted to being part of things greater than myself - an orchestra, a tradition of music and literature and ideas, etc. Still, I can see how religion in so many cases gives people's life an added dimension of meaning beyond any of these other things. So it made me wonder, if one day I were in a position to sacrifice myself for a faith, whether I would - or whether I would even have a choice.

Sorry to burden my loyal readers with such a long, navel-gazing post - it's been on my mind a lot lately, though. I recently discovered a wonderful essay called "On Forgetting" by Nicole Krauss which I would recommend to anyone. It's about family history, memory, writing and her own recent novel, which I am anxious to read. As she writes, "There is the burden of memory, but there is also the burden of those who know they must remember but cannot" - that's me, I guess.

a day in the life of bassist Ben Levy

Today a friend forwarded me an article about Ben Levy, a bass player classmate of mine at New England Conservatory and currently a member of the Boston Symphony. The article, "Bass of operations", follows Ben around a day of rehearsals at Tanglewood.

Strangely, I had just been practicing an excerpt book which Ben had borrowed and which still has some of his markings - most mysteriously the phrase "* passive vibrato", which is written repeatedly. I'll have to ask him about that some day. The article makes a big deal out of how wildly successful Ben has been and how much money he is earning, but he seems to have stayed modest and grounded, with the same self-deprecating sense of humor I remember. Ben used to love to enter a conversation on a bizarre tangent, wander off into an even stranger subject, and then end abruptly by announcing his "no pointer". When it came to his playing, though, Ben always seemed to cause people to sit up and listen, and he played with such energy and focus that it was impossible to not get enthused as well.

my Beethoven Septet group, last Sunday in Kent

gimmicks and quandaries at the symphony

There is an interesting article in today's New York Times, "New Overtures at the Symphony" by Daniel Wakin, discussing some of the latest promotional ideas to attract young audiences - cocktails, networking, free t-shirts, video games, dinner, films - as the sub-headline wonders, "Do orchestras want to inspire us, or date us?"

One of the orchestras mentioned is the New World Symphony, which is experimenting with 20-minute long programs, repeated hourly - something to pull in tourists and window-shoppers on Lincoln Road, I imagine, without the commitment of a two-hour concert. I love the idea of attracting new audiences and making orchestral music more accessible. The challenge is always to deliver music of the highest quality, and give people a reason to come back for the full experience.

I got to see another of the promotions mentioned in the article - the Cleveland Orchestra's sci-fi night, with Also Sprach Zarathustra and Holst's The Planets accompanied by space images on a video screen. It was a fun evening, the orchestra sounded great, and there was an enormous crowd - all signs of success. Still, I worry that a generation is being indoctrinated to view orchestras as background music.

We need to find ways to not just pull people in, but help them to listen actively, passionately, and imaginatively - a delicate task, made even more difficult if we've cluttered the concert hall with distractions. As one orchestra official remarks in the Times article, if we depend on gimmicks and giveaways for orchestras' survival, "We are in a lot of trouble."

audition habits, part IV

This is the fourth post on the audition wisdom of Thomas Freer (TF), assistant principal timpanist and section percussionist in the Cleveland Orchestra. TF has developed a unique and practical method of audition preparation, which he explained in two seminars at this summer’s Kent Blossom Music Festival, and which I’ve tried to summarize here. If you’d like to catch up you can read the previous post, or jump back to part I.

The beauty of TF’s approach is that, by practicing the audition as realistically as possible, the event itself will seem familiar and ordinary. This is not to say that auditions will become boring - the excitement and energy should come from the music, not from anxiety about what it will feel like to walk on stage and play to a screen. A few pieces of practical advice from TF may help keep the day of the audition even more comfortable and focused.

1. Be self-sufficient

Sometimes the waiting at an audition can be as stressful as the playing - you can also prepare to wait, though, and bring whatever provisions you may need - food, water, reading material, etc. You often may have limited opportunities to leave the audition site during the day, and it might be preferable to stay in any case. Being ready to wait will give you the flexibility to focus on one round at a time.

2. Be friendly, but don’t treat it as a social function

It is easy to get involved in long catch-up conversations with other players at an audition - your first priority, though, is to win the job, not to network. You don’t need to stonewall your friends - just say, “Great to see you - let’s catch up later - now I’ve got to get ready.” If you are playing late in a round, which TF recommends you try to do - see below - you may actually be able to quiz your friends. Ask what they played, how the hall responded, what they were asked to play differently. The list will almost always remain the same throughout the round, and if you ask the right questions (and your friends answer honestly!) you can gain a lot of useful information this way.

3. Be ready, but don’t be early

Getting plenty of sleep, a good breakfast, and a thorough warm-up - these are all common wisdom for any important performance. An audition is one performance, though, in which it may not be to your advantage to show up a half-hour before you are expected. In fact, TF suggests showing up 45 minutes late if you are given an early time in a cattle call audition - you can always make a plausible excuse, and get to play later in the round. This will give you more time to look at the list, which is frequently announced just before the first candidate plays. Later players also benefit from a panel which has heard a lot of people and has learned what to expect and where to focus.

4. Be assertive and responsive in repeating excerpts

If something goes wrong, and you know you can play an excerpt much better, don’t be afraid to ask to play it again. Even if the proctor is resistant, the panel will usually be happy to hear you - as long as they can hear a difference. Likewise, if the panel instructs you to repeat an excerpt with a different tempo or character, be ready to make a demonstrable difference. You can test yourself at this in your mock auditions - have your panelists give you an instruction, and play it back to see if you really made the change.

While you want to be adaptable and attentive to anything the panel says, don’t read too much into it - it doesn’t mean you screwed up, they may just be trying to see how responsive you will be. Just like in your mock auditions, you need to rely on your own observations and quality control, and play to your own ideals. Of course, the more thoroughly you’ve prepared and learned the excerpts, the better you’ll be able to present a convincing interpretation, as well as to adjust when asked.

5. Be single-minded, and single-pointed

One last bit of intriguing advice - TF mentioned how when Tiger Woods prepares his golf swing, he doesn’t look all around. His vision pattern follows an extremely simple path - ball, hole, ball, hole, etc. We don’t have quite as clear and visible a target to aim for, but if we focus our vision on a single point, and move our eyes slowly between points, we can often calm and quiet our scattered thoughts.

Many thanks to Tom Freer for all his help and advice, and thanks and congratulations to any readers who managed to navigate through my first serialized posting! Please feel free to comment with any additional audition suggestions.

the last road trip of the summer

This summer I had four long road trips, and the longest one was earlier this week - from Kent, Ohio to Miami Beach, Florida. It took me 35 hours (21 driving, 14 eating/sleeping/staring forlornly at road atlas), covering 1,230 miles. I didn't take too many photos, but I have a few to share.

my car Otis at a rest stop in West Virginia

Most of the pictures I took, including the ones above and below, were at a rest stop in West Virginia. This was one of the most interesting and beautiful stretches of highway, running through the mountains, and I found a pleasant place there to stop for lunch.

West Virginian nature, just off I-77

My credit card was getting brutalized at the gas stations, but luckily I found a cheap motel to stay Monday night - the Plantation Inn of Ridgeland, South Carolina. So many of the motels on the highway try to lure you in with "Wireless internet! Free hot breakfast!" Clean and cheap was enough for me - and I got 1 of 2 at the Plantation Inn.

the cheapest motel in South Carolina

This little photo show perhaps doesn't quite do justice to the tediousness and boredom of driving across the country by yourself. Still, you can share my joy in the next photo, which I took while operating the steering wheel with one knee.

finally arriving in Miami Beach